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The Apprentice’s Lord Sugar has revealed the real reason behind the return of the Celebrity Apprentice – as the BBC ‘took inspiration’ from one of its other shows.
The Celebrity Apprentice returned for a one-off special over Christmas after it was confirmed a full series was in the works for release this year.
The full-length series featuring famous faces will follow on from the current series, which will air on BBC One from Thursday at 9pm.
The businessman, who has been the star of the BBC One business programme since 2004, explained that the broadcaster noted the success of another celebrity spin-off format to bring back the series, which last aired a full series in 2019.
While rival primetime TV show The Traitors has welcomed millions of viewers since its debut in 2022 – its Celebrity spin-off last November far exceeded the average viewing figures of the game-show.
While the latest civilian version reached a mammoth average of 9.4 million viewers with its finale, the Celebrity Traitors final was watched by 15 million people.
The Apprentice’s Lord Sugar has revealed the real reason behind the return of the Celebrity Apprentice – as the BBC ‘took inspiration’ from one of its other shows
The Celebrity Apprentice returned for a one-off special over Christmas after it was confirmed a full series was in the works for release this year
The businessman, who has been the star of the BBC One business programme since 2004, explained that the broadcaster noted the success of Celebrity Traitors
The finale, which saw Alan Carr take home the cash prize for charity, was the most-watched moment on British TV in 2025.
Lord Sugar told the Daily Mail: ‘I think that the BBC, in their wisdom, looked at that programme called The Traitors, which has done very well, is doing very well.
‘They did a celebrity version of it, and that went very well – so I think that what they’re thinking is, do a celebrity version of The Apprentice.
‘This time, the celebrity winner will have some money to give to a charity, whereas in the past, the celebrity ones that we’ve done were the celebrities themselves giving up their valuable time because it was all for a charity.
‘It’s going to be a six episode programme, so it’s going to take quite a while to film.’
The Traitors, presented by Claudia Winkleman, first hit our screens on BBC One in 2022.
The programme has gone on to air four successful series, with Stephen Libby and Rachel Duffy recently taking home the huge prize money in an excruciating final last week.
The Celebrity Apprentice returned to our screens in December last year as a two-part Christmas special, filmed in honour of Children In Need.
The Celebrity Traitors finale saw Alan Carr (pictured) take home the cash prize for charity
A number of our favourite celebrities took part in the spin-off as they jetted off to Lapland to develop their own gingerbread biscuits which they had to market with an advert and a jingle.
Team one consisted of AJ Odudu, Charlie Hedges, Eddie Kadi, Jake Wood, Kadeena Cox and Rob Rinder, and they created Jolly McTrouble, a gingerbread biscuit with a vanilla and Christmas pudding flavoured festive icing.
Meanwhile Angela Scanlon, JB Gill, Matt Morsia, Sarah Hadland, Shazia Mirza and Tom Skinner made Gary the Penguin.
And in the end it was JB’s team that impressed Lord Sugar the most.
Before that aired, the BBC had announced the first full-length Celebrity Apprentice series after the upcoming Christmas special set to air this festive season.
The first ever Celebrity Apprentice aired in 2007, followed by a second in 2009 and a third in 2019.
They each only had two episodes and were filmed as part of Comic Relief.
But now the programme has made history and revealed that the celebrity version will have a full six-part series airing in 2026.
Lord Sugar, who has been part of the programme since 2005, has said of the upcoming series: ‘We’ve had some great celebrity names walk into my boardroom over the years, but they’ve only ever had a small taster of what it’s like to be a candidate.
‘It’ll be interesting to see how our future celebrities fare across a full series, removing their PAs, PRs, agents and all the other assistance they have in their day-to-day lives to fully immerse themselves into world.’
Head of entertainment at the BBC, Kalpna Patel-Knight, said: ‘The Apprentice is a much-loved part of the BBC’s entertainment offering and we can’t wait to see how the celebrity candidates rise to the challenge when the series launches later in 2026.’